February 12, 2009 by sharky
If you own a TomTom, Garmin or Navigon we don’t have to tell you how expensive it is to purchase additional maps and software. Garmin maps start at $50 and in most cases run up into the hundreds of dollars; likewise with TomTom - starting at $60 for maps supporting their older devices; but usually much steeper. While Google can be your best friend, it probably won’t lead you down the right path to the true sources for free GPS navigation and map software - and that’s on torrent trackers and Direct Download forums. These sites won’t make your head spin with inane Google rhetoric - just free maps and software for whatever GPS device you own.
Private Trackers For GPS Software & Maps
While there are no known private trackers solely dedicated to GPS maps & software, there are a few that have a great selection for just about any GPS or handheld unit.
http://torrents.ru
Highly-recommended Torrents.ru (signup link here) has a very popular section for current GPS/GIS, navigation & maps (original here - translated here). Maps aren’t limited to Russian or European - for popular devices they have maps of all parts of the world. Supported devices: TomTom, Navigon, Garmin, handheld Windows Mobile PDAs (WM PDA), and others. There’s also an "Integrated Car Navigation" area for cars of popular makes/models with built-in nav. systems (Audi, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes etc).
Torrent #’s/software: TomTom (205), Garmin (196), Navigon (49), Ozi (180), iGO (156), Others (1,000’s).
TIP: We can’t figure out a way to translate Torrents.ru while logged in to our account, nor is the default language changeable in the user profile. However if you’re not logged in, you’ll be able to browse the forums and categories while translating the pages through translate.google.com.
— Demonoid.com also has a selection of torrents for TomTom, Garmin and others - although the content is nowhere near as exhaustive or current as it is at Torrents.ru. Demonoid torrent count: TomTom (127), Garmin (83), iGO (44), Navigon (5).
Torrentleech has 35 TomTom torrents, but not much else. RevoTT has just 12, and Zamunda just 7. Some smaller niche trackers such as SyncTheBits may also be helpful for Pocket PC and handheld devices.
Public Torrent Trackers:
Public trackers should be used as a last resort, but many do offer some GPS and map-related torrents. While just about any torrent meta search site will do, here’s the number of torrents for 4 public sites and popular GPS device software:
| TomTom | Garmin | Navigon | iGO | |
| ThePirateBay.org | 315 | 399 | 36 | 39 |
| Mininova.org | 54 | 127 | 4 | 10 |
| Torrentz.ru | 376 | 314 | 67 | 55 |
| Isohunt.com | 139 | 476 | 4 | 29 |
*All stats include dead torrents (unseeded), and external private torrents.
1-Click Hoster / RapidShare DDL Forums For Maps, GPS
"Direct Download" Forums (aka. ‘Warez’ Forums) offer a much more robust selection than most trackers. Here’s a few of the best…
http://forum.ppcwarez.org
Forum.ppcwarez.org is an amazing Warez board for GPS-related releases. There’s over 1,000 different forum threads in GPS; for Destinator, Garmin, TomTom, iGO, Navigon, Route66 and others. Each of the above categories are further broken down into these sub-forums: "Navigation Software", "Maps" and "Speedcams/Voices/Others".
PPCWarez is well-laid out, there’s lots of current releases (with new ones every day), and the download links are easy to find. A winner in our books!
www.gpsunderground.com/forums/
Great discussion board dedicated to everything GPS / GPA - with RapidShare download links for just about everything. Sub-forums include:
- • TomTom
- • iGO / MioMap
- • Navigon
- • PDA / PNA / Smartphone Utilities
- • Other… Route66, MapKing, Destinator
- • Garmin
- • Car Navigation Systems
www.ipmart-forum.com
IPMart-Forum is not exclusively a forum for just GPA stuff, but also carries just about everything else - including phones, PDAs, PocketPC / Palm, Symbian etc. Here’s a sub-forum dedicated to "Satellite" discussions for TomTom, Route66 and others (but you won’t find Garmin). The threads are a little cluttered, which is where the search feature comes in handy (but only available to registered users). A quick search for "TomTom" finds forum posts in virtually every device category; including Symbian, SmartPhone, Nokia, PocketPC & Blackberry.
IPMart also has torrents (hosted externally and on their own tracker) with its own separate search field, although most of the releases are somewhat outdated. It should be noted that Garmin releases can be found in a ‘torrent’ search.
www.be-share.com
A blog-style release site for a little bit of everything, but also carries a limited amount of GSM releases (Garmin, TomTom, iGO & Navitel) - with download links to RapidShare and LetitBit. Be sure to use their search function, as many of the GPS releases are posted in the software category.
Other Sites:
http://forum.ru-board.com - Another decent source for TomTom, Garmin etc.
http://hotfilms.org - Browsing through the categories likely won’t get you anywhere, but searching for specific PDA devices & software yields plenty of results.
http://www.warez-bb.org - Probably a good source, but their search is down (should return in 7-8 days).
Fileshunt.com and RapidLibrary are RapidShare search engines (not a warez board where staff and other members are posting quality links) so use at your own risk.
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